Every Hero Has a Story - that was the theme of this year's summer reading and I wanted to continue that idea as we began this year. We are all reading heroes and we all have passions to share and stories we love!

It's been a busy first few weeks! Here is a little about what we've been up to:

Passions! Peter Sis's Ice Cream Summer made all the first and second graders smile with delight as they fell in love with those amazing pictures and learned a thing or two about ice cream as well. We have been drawing pictures of some of our passions too - pizza, trains, and much more. That led us to asking questions about our passions.

Questions! My 1st/2nd grade classes and grade 2 classes have been thinking a lot about asking questions. Inspired by Bernard Waber's Ask Me and Marie-Louise Gay's Any Questions?, students have been asking many of their own. We will be filling up our Let Your Mind Wonder walls all year long!

Stories! PreK and K classes had a lot of fun with Debbie Ridpath Ohi's Where Are My Books? These readers looked intently at the pictures and had lots of ideas about who was taking the books! Boy were they surprised to see who the culprits are! The 3rd/4th grade classes were stunned as I revealed Brian Selznick's newest book The Marvels through his booktrailer. (Here's how it was made.) One of the best parts about Google Classroom is that I can embed that trailer right into the class stream and they can watch it again and again. And did I mention that Mr. Selznick will be visiting CT at the end of this week? I can't wait to bring my kids to meet him! Little Elliott Big City made it's debut in my libraries too. Students were quick to notice details in the pictures, the friendship that develops, and the need for teamwork. And of course all of the DOTS! We can't wait for our stuffed Elliott to come!

Readers! Students in my 3/4 classes were thrilled on their first day of library to learn a little about Mrs. Lussier's summer reading using Kahoot! There was much laughing out loud at Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea and a lot of learning for myself and the kids as we jumped into using Google Classroom! What a great way to have students think about their reading lives as they completed a reading inventory. I can't wait to learn more from each of them.

International Dot Day! Creating Celebridot's, Quiver's 3D dots (fomerly ColarMix), and more got us started celebrating Dot Day today! We loved reading Ballet Cat - The Totally Secret Secret by Bob Shea (check out all the dots in this book!) (here's how to draw Ballet Cat) and in some classes The Dot. Thinking about how we can make our mark this year is challenging but important. I love seeing the amazing artwork and joy every year. This year we had a little background music too - the Dot Song.

What else is new? Brewster School's chapter books are being weeded and genrefied! I think this will make more books accessible to students as they look for great books to read. I am so excited to share with the students next week. I also started using a Planbook.com and I love how easy it is to use. I especially love how almost any standard I need is embedded within the lesson. For only $12 a year, I think it is an excellent investment.